Welcoming the love month with my January reading wrap-up.
This month I started my yearly reading challenge of forty books right by reading three books. According to both Goodreads and Storygraph, I’m on track!
The three books read this month were:
- “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, by Stieg Larsson (a book that followed me from 2023 to 2024);
- “Conversations with Friends”, by Sally Rooney;
- And “Swimming in the Dark”, by Tomasz Jedrowski.
Altogether, it made a total of 928 pages, an average of 309 pages per book. With the following reading stats:
Now and without any further ado, let’s deep dive into each one of them.
Again, please keep in mind the next part of this blog post will include spoilers!!! If you’re hoping to read any of these books, don’t continue scrolling.
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, by Stieg Larsson
(Goodreads | Storygraph)
The year’s first finished book was an attempt to finish a literary bingo from a book club I participated in. Specifically, this one was the first book added to my TBR that wasn’t read yet. Considering it was first published back in 2005, you can tell how long I’ve been wanting to read it.
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” the first book from the Millennium saga and the first one on this January reading wrap-up.
It entangles the stories of the Vanger family, Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander. Mikael Blomkvist is editor-chief of Millennium magazine, an investigation magazine wishing to uncover the dark side of Sweden’s biggest and dirtiest companies and businessmen. After his conviction against Hans-Erik Wennerstrom, he finds himself troubled with money, with his honour and reputation worse than ever. It is when Mikael receives a call from Henrik Vanger’s lawyer with a mysterious proposal that he finds himself with a solution.
Henrik Vanger, retired CEO of Vanger Corporation, has been struggling for forty years with the disappearance of his cousin, Harriet Vanger, and the unknown of her whereabouts. In need of an answer, Henrik wishes to use Mikael’s investigation skills to find what happened back in that day, proposing to him a very generous deal and solution to keep him out of the public eye.
As Mikael starts digging into Vanger family’s past, we are presented with Lisbeth Salander, a 24-year-old hacker with an incredible photogenic memory and a dragon tattoo.
Her troubled youth and lack of will to work with mental health professionals led being declared mentally incompetent as a youth. She always got ok with her former tutor until he suffered a stroke and she became under the guardianship of Nils Bjurman. This man takes advantage of his power under her and rapes her multiple times. Until Salander decides to take back control of the narrative, videotaping one of the rapes and blackmailing him.
Now, I must do a disclaimer and warn you of the extreme violence of the actions described in this part of the book. It includes a deep, detailed, and visual description of the acts that might shock a lot of readers. I’m not going to lie because I was absolutely disgusted and impacted reading these parts.
Salander and Blomkvist’s fates cross as Mikael requests her help to join the investigation. As the duo spends more and more time together going under all the Vanger’s family details, Salander starts to trust an adult for the first time in her life and the two develop a romantic relationship.
They start discovering some disturbing murders of women in Sweden back in the forties and sixties and their connections to Leviticus. With more deep dive, they can connect these murders to one of the Vanger’s family members: Gottfried. It doesn’t end here, as Gottfried, the father of Harriet and Martin, raped both his sons and even started to mentor Martin into his vicious acts raping and murdering women. As Mikael finds this, he decides to confront Martin, only to find himself in an almost-death situation, saved last minute by Salander. The confrontation takes the next level leading to Martin’s death slash suicide.
The mystery isn’t solved, and Harriet remains missing.
It is due to her cousin, Cecilia, who turns out to be Harriet’s confident all those years, that they can locate her in Australia.
Finding Harriet and coming clean with all that has happened in the last months, Mikael is able to gain her trust and convince her to come back home; gathering the Vanger family once and for all, freeing them from all the evil that haunted their family for decades.
At first, it was difficult for me to keep up with the story due to the volume of Swedish names, cities, and businesses, I’m not accustomed to. The quick switches between characters and respective storylines also didn’t help, as you probably can tell by my attempt to summarize it.
As soon as I started to understand the connections (around 30-40% of the story), it was a book I just couldn’t be away from. I had to know what was going to happen and I kept being shocked by all the findings of Mikael and Salander’s investigation.
I was fond of the way Salander, initially portrayed as a lonely wolf, saw in Mikael someone worthy of her trust, worthy of letting into her intimacy and a part of her pack. The web inside the Vanger’s family was a continuous surprise as it kept getting darker and darker.
It is also what leads me to say that this is not a book for someone with a sensitive stomach as Stieg Larsson details so visually all the cruel acts, from Salander’s rapes to Gottfried and Martin’s cruel acts toward women.
In my opinion, this book deserves a 4,25 out of 5 rating as it entails such a well-accomplished storyline but a bit of a confusing start.
If I loved the book? Yes. Am I going to read the following ones from Millennium saga? Probably not. I believe I have made clear my fears for collections that start perfectly fine and end in a complete mess, ruining the first experience.
“Conversations with Friends”, by Sally Rooney
(Goodreads | Storygraph)
Even though this is a pretty recent blog, I believe to have stated enough of my adoration for Sally Rooney from the first moment. As she took part in my best books of 2023 post with “Normal People”.
Simultaneously with this adoration, I have a fear. When this level of fangirling is reached over an author, I’m afraid to read all their work before there is anything new published. The same happens for the amazing Dolly Alderton.
So, I decided to take things slow and not read both their work like a crazy person would (as that happened with Emily Henry and now, I’m not loving having to wait for “Funny Feelings” release until April……… If anyone knows of Emily, I would love to have a chat……).
I was able to wait a year and the time has come to review my second read of the author, which made her way into this January reading wrap-up.
“Conversations with Friends” tells of Frances and Bobbi, two 21-year-old college students in Dublin who are both friends and former girlfriends. The duo also has a two-person speaking poetry performance that leads them to meet an older couple: Melissa, a semi-famous writer, and Nick, a handsome actor.
At first, the friends start to hang out more with Melissa, as there is some attraction between Bobbi and her. Nick is barely there as he is busy with filming. However, as the get-togethers become more frequent, Nick and Frances also start to develop a connection leading to an affair. A first for Nick who is used to being cheated on by his wife.
When the couple takes the duo to a vacation in France with other friends, the affair continues but Nick always states the love for his wife remains present.
Coming back to Dublin’s reality, Nick tells of the affair to his wife and states that he wishes to continue to see Frances.
As the storyline develops, we are aware of Nick’s mental health state that led to Melissa’s affair and of his history with depression; as well as Frances troubles with finances as her father stops paying her allowance and seems, himself, to be suffering from mental health issues impacted by his alcoholism.
Becoming broke and facing a generous offer, Frances ends up publishing an unflattering story about Bobbi in a literary magazine. This leads to a crisis when Bobbi finds out and gets upset, leaving the apartment the two shared.
Finding herself alone, facing a health issue that causes frequent pain, with her affair with Nick ended; Frances goes to the church to pray and eventually apologizes to Bobbi.
In the end, we have the two friends back together, growing closer; Nick accidentally dialling Frances number and the two discuss their relationship.
Sally Rooney leaves a cliffhanger that makes the reader think, at the end of the call, that the affair will continue between Nick and Frances.
To be completely honest, I didn’t fall as much in love with “Conversations with Friends” as I did with “Normal People”. And, honestly, I didn’t get the book’s hype around the book community.
I couldn’t connect to the characters and the only one I was able to see some coming through was Nick. Who, in the beginning of the book, seems resigned to his fate, being passive on most occasions in his life and, in the affair with Frances, was able to grow back his confidence and personality, becoming a completely different person in the end. Even if it was in a bad way, he found his life a new way and meaning.
Another character I felt sorry for not being explored in this novel was Frances’ father. We hear of the impact his drinking had on Frances’ growing up and how she depends on him financially but, in the middle of the book, there’s a call he makes her when he confesses to be struggling with life and mental health himself. I even thought those were moments before ending his life, but there was no follow-up on that topic, and I think it could’ve been interesting to go deeper into this father-daughter relationship.
A point that got me was Frances and Bobbi’s friendship. Even though very troubled and with some bad attitudes from both sides, the duo was always there for each other, understanding each other better than anyone else. Portraying, in the beginning, traits that are common in young female friendships, such as envy and possession; and reporting their evolution and coming through making them closer than ever. It made this book worthy of a Galentine’s day book recommendation for me.
Concluding and having to be honest, I gave this book a 3 out of 5 stars rating.
“Swimming in the Dark”, by Tomasz Jedrowski
(Goodreads | Storygraph)
Moving to my last January read in this January reading wrap-up and, what I believe is already, one of my favourites from 2024.
“Swimming in the Dark” takes us back to the eighties in communist-declining Poland in the aftermath of World War II.
Ludwik, our narrator, has struggled to find his place since he was little and found himself more attracted to boys than to girls.
As he grows, he starts exploring this feeling, going to places where he knows homosexual activity might happen under the Parties’ eyes. He has a first interaction in a park with an older man who finally releases him to realise who he is (this detail is very important further into the novel).
However, it is in summer agricultural camp that Ludwik meets Janusz, a pro-Communist activist. The two develop a romantic relationship, far away from the city, where they are free to love each other.
Returning to the city brings a harsh reality, as Ludwik realises what they so freely lived wasn’t possible to continue. With the instability lived in the country, martial law is activated, and the austerity grows, making life harder for most of the population.
Ludwik struggles as he sees Janusz moving on and living a life that, even if a lie, is necessary to survive under the regime.
Janusz starts growing closer to Hania, who the reader later finds to be the daughter of an important General, and who he hopes will help boost his career. Hania was never that close to Ludwik but ends up also inviting him to her house outside of Warsaw.
This is when Ludwik has the confrontation with the growing romance between the two and when Janusz incentives his now friend to ask for Hania’s help to have his investigation approved. Even though recognized by his teacher to be a very promising one, others’ work might take priority due to personal connections and influence.
Coming back to Warsaw after finding Janusz and Hania having sex in the woods, Ludwik decides to flee the country even with martial law in place.
It is when he’s requesting his passport approval that he finds out his previous actions might not have gone so under the rather as he thought, as he is now being accused by the authorities of the crime of homosexuality.
Desperate to not be incarcerated and struggling to not report on his former lover, he goes to Hania. Confessing his true self and admitting for the first time in his life out loud that he is, in fact, a homosexual; he finds in Hania the help and comprehension he struggled for his entire life.
Fast forward to a Ludwik in the United States, away from the communist regime, we see him freed from everything that prevented him from being his true self.
Despite that, the doubt of what a life together would be remains in the land of the free.
The way Tomasz Jedrowski portrays Ludwik’s coming through in the early stages of the book, rebelling against the norms of society; is perfectly matched with others’ rebellious acts: from the workers’ strikes to his mother and grandmother’s radio where the two listen to “Europe Radio” and teach him of what is truly happening in the world outside of the Party’s controlled communications.
The last interaction between Hania and Ludwik is brilliantly described as the two, who, at first didn’t get along because they were actually “fighting” for the same man; become much closer and Ludwik sees himself obligated to show himself to Hania. Hania’s reaction to this information, left a tear in my eye as I didn’t expect such a character (remind yourselves she is the daughter of a Party’s general) to have a comprehensive, compassionate reaction.
It was actually one of my favourite moments of the book and the moment I realised that, in times of despair and suffer, safety can be found in the least expected places. This interaction both broke my heart and had it “awned” in the same fraction of seconds.
It is truly an incredible reading with such beautiful writing that will forever hold some of my, now, favourite quotes: “I fell into different galaxies through you, your mouth a porthole to a better universe.”, “(…) you were right when you said people can’t always give us what we want from them; that you can’t ask them to love you the way you want.” And, last but not least, “Did we even believe that we deserved to get away with happiness?”.
This one is straight into my favourites of 2024 and deserving of a 5 out of 5 stars rating.
Have you read any of these books? What are your opinions on them?
Finishing this January reading wrap-up, let me know in the comment section what your February readings will be!